The first degree.

[hannah]

Because I want some content, and need to settle myself down to make anything original, it's time for some audience participation.

Pick a character I write, and I will give you the top five ideas/concepts/other I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to depicting them accurately.

Comments

[akire-yta.livejournal.com]

Parker!

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Wilson.

[newredshoes]

Hoyt!

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

House!

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

1. Because of a blood clot left untreated for several days, he's in a constant state of chronic pain. Because of the removal of a large amount of dead muscle in his thigh, he's physically incapable of many things, such as riding a bike, mountain climbing, square dancing, or running.

2. He doesn't much like people. But he enjoys their company. He doesn't need constant contact, but he needs it consistently. He can be very social and congenial if he wants to be, but usually doesn't see the point: he was an emotionally sensitive kid, and that kid got left behind a long time ago.

3. He's always been misanthropic and cynical; the pain and loss of his leg changed his life, but it didn't change him.

4. He likes women, and is very enthusiastically heterosexual. Not to say he'd never turn down a guy if it was the right set of circumstances - more to say that he likes women, the relationships he's had with them, their physical characteristics. And he doesn't like weak women for the reasons he doesn't like weak people in general.

5. He's wicked smart, way too smart for his own good, and that's a lot of why he's so misanthropic. Data goes into his head and information comes out, and he can absorb a lot of data in a really short amount of time. He's learned to adjust to being the smartest one in the room and deal with people that can't make the connections or know everything.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

How do I not have any True Blood icons? It's such a lush show.

1. He's one of those genuinely nice guys who isn't a Nice Guy. He listens, likes talking to people, is easily social and very kind, and makes friends without trouble. He might not remember birthdays and anniversaries, but he'll be there to help you move a couch not because he owes a favor but because it's a nice, friendly to do.

2. Following that - he's not dumb, and he's not a fuckup, either. He's smoked pot and gotten into fights, but who hasn't? The family he grew up with held him back in a lot of ordinary, human ways, and he's only recently starting to grow out of his childhood.

3. He doesn't know about some of the side-effects of drinking vampire blood. Even if he did, he'd say it didn't make a difference to him.

4. There's more going on in his head than people think. Living with his mother taught him how to be quiet and hold himself still.

5. He grew up in a small town and lived there his entire life, and knew everyone around him. He can't ever leave that attitude behind, that feeling of close-knit communities and belonging, and enjoys that when it's the real thing.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

1. He's Jewish. Not practicing and ambivalent to a lot of the questions and traditions, but he's Jewish. Even in the US during the seventies and eighties when he grew up, there was still that feeling of otherness, and that affected his early perception of the world.

2. He's naturally social. He's not a gossip and likes small talk as much as any random person off the street, but he likes people and really enjoys company. He thrives on it, even more than House does. Even before his brother left, he would have been the guy who knows everyone at the party or in the department, because his current level of skill can only come from natural talent.

3. He doesn't know how to be alone.

4. He's smart. Not as smart as House - almost no one is - but intelligent, well-educated, and can more than hold up his end of the conversation without having to scramble for answers or clever quips.

5. His friendship with House gives him a lot of freedom he wouldn't have if he was friends with someone more conventional; monster truck rallies and late-night porn is just part of it. House is a chance for him to accept part of himself he usually keeps locked up and ignored. It's less that he's comfortable with duplicity and more that he's very good at playing the roles, and not so good at playing himself.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

1. Parker has a fantastic visual imagination. She can see how things work and how they fit together - cloth, car engines, building designs, all sorts of things with moving parts. In another universe she'd be a kick-ass mechanical engineer or tailor or architect, because she'd be able to work out the schematics all in her head.

2. She's very sensitive to touch. Not people touching her, but touch in general. That, and her body in space.

3. If she doesn't know something, she'll go out and learn it. She won't bluff and doesn't see the point.

4. She might not know how to say she wants something, or even that she does, but she knows something's going on inside her. More often than not, that makes her uncomfortable.

5. She sees the world in a very simple way, and likes it like that.